Gas turbines (GT) are often subjected to harsh operating conditions and prolonged operation times, leading to fouling of turbine components. For GT compressor components, fouling may adversely affect the aerodynamic performance of the turbine components by increasing the coefficient of drag (CD) and resulting in reduced performance. Usually during major inspections, which are conducted at predetermined intervals, turbine components such as rotor blades and stator vanes are manually scrubbed and/or cleaned to partially restore the surface finish of the blades and vanes. The scrubbing and/or cleaning of the rotor blades and vanes improves the surface finish, partially restoring GT output and efficiency. However, current methods of cleaning do not fully restore the surface finish to that of a new turbine component.
Manual scrubbing and/or cleaning of the rotor blades is a time-consuming process which results in a less than optimal surface finish of the blade. An alternative to manual scrubbing and/or cleaning of the rotor blades is submerging the turbine components in a cleaning fluid.
Submerging of the rotor blades in a cleaning fluid provides an improved surface finish of the blade, as compared to manual scrubbing. However, current methods and/or cleaning fluids require disassembly and/or transportation of the GT. Disassembly and transportation increase the GT downtime, resulting in lost productivity. Downtime for transportation of the GT can be up to two months.
A cleaning method that does not suffer from one or more of the above drawbacks is desirable in the art.